Murder Fortissimo (3 page)

‘Listen, will you? What’s the matter with you, you big dummy.’

Kieran jerked his head up from a smiling daydream about putting his hand down Gemma’s T-shirt and— He had no idea what he would do if he ever got that far, his life up to now was a tit-free zone. Ryan was staring at him with narrowed dark eyes, a scowl disfiguring his handsome, Elvis features, with the smouldering look that drove the girls wild, along with the careless tumble of shining dark curls that haloed his face. Kieran had no need to look in the mirror to know that his own amiably stupid face was too fat and too freckled, not to mention too spotty, to make any headway with girls.

Ryan stood on the swing and glared at Kieran.

‘My girl. Gemma.’ He was speaking with exaggerated patience now, the way nearly everyone did eventually. Kieran was used to it, and most of the time he didn’t mind. He had heard Ryan only the other day, explaining his friend to somebody else. ‘Old Kieran’s all right, just a bit thick and you have to give him a kick now and then when he has one of his stupid times, but he’s a good mate and built like a brick
shit-house
; comes in handy if there’s a fight.’

Kieran beamed now and nodded, glad to be of use, smiling as he remembered Ryan snorting with laughter as he went on: ‘He’s good to take with you if you want to nick stuff, get him in the off-licence with that great khaki army coat flapping round and he’ll knock cans flying. He doesn’t mean to do it but the noise it makes and the fuss means they don’t notice me sticking cans and bottles in my pockets.’

‘I was telling you about Gemma, are you listening?’ He took another can from his pocket, flicked the ring-pull over towards the bushes at the edge of the playground, and took a long swig. ‘She’s only gone and got a job at that Firstone Grange place. You know, down the road with the rich old wrinklies. I told you about it the other day when she was going for the interview. She texted me and told me she’s got a live-in job so she’ll be away from her old witch of a mother. Might come in handy.’

Kieran nodded slowly. Gemma’s mum was one of the few who had failed to come under the spell of Ryan’s soulful brown gaze. In fact she had threatened him with a knife if she ever caught him near Gemma again and Kieran could tell that Ryan had been impressed by the threat.

‘Funny how upset Gem was about getting rid of the baby,’ mused Ryan, switching moods. ‘Everybody does it, my mum’s done it loads of times, never bothers her. So why did Gemma get in such a state? Besides,’ the scowl was back. ‘She was supposed to be on the pill. Might have known she’d cock that up somehow. Like I said, she’s about as bright as you are.’

Kieran accepted the clap on the shoulder but avoided Ryan’s eyes. It was only too plain from the lowering frown that Ryan was remembering what Gemma’s mum had said. She had called him a ‘shifty, oily, randy little scumbag who never did a day’s work in his life and ought to have his balls chopped off; and would have, if she had her way.’

The fat boy had been lurking by the garden gate when he
overheard that diatribe and now he trembled for Mrs Sankey’s safety. Ryan’s temper had been evil for days after that episode and that meant Mrs Sankey was on his punishment list.

‘Do you handle many period cottages?’ Neil asked as he opened the leaded casement window and gazed out at the view from the master bedroom. The cottage, with its immaculate decor, Farrow & Ball of course, and manicured garden (no expense spared), had stood for more than three hundred years against a gentle slope of farmland, halfway between the winding and pretty redbrick village of Hursley and the nearby village of Otterbourne.

Alice leaned beside him on the window sill, a tight squeeze but a companionable one.

‘Cottages?’ She shook her head. ‘Not an awful lot, Barry hasn’t really concentrated on what you might call country properties. He’s gone more for smaller and cheaper, the
first-time
buyer and the next stage up.’

She cast an approving glance over the garden with its neat vegetable plot, bare now apart from cabbages and brussels sprouts, with a carefully tended herbaceous border already showing the points of a few foolhardy bulbs.

‘This has been awfully well done, hasn’t it?’ She waved a vague hand. ‘I mean, the house is obviously two farm cottages knocked into one and they’ve managed to keep the cottagey spirit without sacrificing comfort. The garden is nice too. I bet they have hollyhocks and night-scented stocks in the summer, proper cottage flowers.’

Neil gave her a sympathetic grin, obviously surprised at this flight of poetic fancy from the prosaic Alice, then he called her attention to the splendid clump of beech trees, tilting precariously in its chalk bed, on the brow of the hill beyond the boundary.

Downstairs in the low-beamed sitting-room of the cottage they compared notes, Alice adding a quick scribble to her clip board, detailing the limed-oak Smallbone kitchen, then they took their leave of the owner, who was reeling in delight at Neil’s valuation, and drove back towards Chambers Forge.

‘From the sublime to the ridiculous,’ laughed Neil as he turned the car into the minute drive of the final house on their list, built on the site of the old brickworks that had once provided the village with its main industry, supplanting its previous claim to fame, the cherry orchards of the seventeenth century.

Alice heard his remark but failed to respond, lost in admiration of the tiny house of her dreams, the Ideal Starter Home. She shook herself and smiled at him, still shy but gaining in confidence after an afternoon spent in Neil’s undemanding, friendly company. ‘It’s such a cosy, compact little house,’ she sighed and saw in his eyes astonishment that such an undistinguished building should seem like the Promised Land to her. ‘It’s just—’ she hesitated. ‘We’ve got a big, rambling old house that’s falling to bits and costs a fortune to heat. There’s an enormous garden as well; it would be wonderful not to have much work to do.’

He nodded and seemed to be thinking hard. Alice was aware that several times during the afternoon he had been struck by something she had said, some shrewd comment that had surprised him. She had noticed him stealing covert glances at her, frowning slightly.

‘Can you drive, Alice?’ he asked now, abruptly.

‘Yes, yes I can. I passed my test years ago, when Daddy was still alive, but I haven’t driven for years. We got rid of the car when Daddy died because it was too expensive to run. Why?’

‘I was just wondering, thinking aloud I suppose. You’re so knowledgeable about the business, but I don’t think.…’ He
glanced down at the badly typed house details in his hand and she felt her cheeks burn. ‘How would you feel about being my assistant? Training as a negotiator I mean, and helping on that side of the business? We could get someone else in to do the typing, maybe on a part-time basis.’

The glow spread from her burning cheeks to her dark eyes and for an instant a new, very different Alice sparkled at him. He was about to speak when the colour faded, leaving her dull and sallow, her eyes bleak.

‘She won’t let me,’ she said drearily.

Next morning Alice packed under her mother’s supervision, knowing she looked as wan and miserable as she felt. Christiane’s stream of criticism suddenly dried up and Alice looked up, to intercept an unusual expression on her mother’s face. It was almost – no, not affectionate, maternal emotion – that was not something she had met with, not once in her entire life – but instead of the usual contempt, her mother wore an oddly calculating look as if she was weighing up just how near to breaking down Alice actually was. A moment later Christiane was frowning at her nails and the moment, whatever had prompted it, vanished. A clumsy movement destroyed the peace.

‘You stupid creature, can’t you do anything properly? That’s my best silk nightdress, fold it properly, I don’t want it creased to blazes.’

Stifling a weary sigh Alice refolded the ivory silk, shuddering a little at the touch. I’ll never, ever have a silk nightdress, or anything else silk, she vowed silently. Somehow the fluid, supple softness of the fabric had come to epitomize her mother over the years. Christiane must wear silk next to the skin because of her extreme sensitivity, no matter what the state of their finances, no matter that during the bad times Alice had been driven to wearing her father’s old vests in winter to keep warm. Christiane must clothe her delicate frame in silk, and silk of the finest quality at that.

Christiane could be like silk, smooth and slippery and, to strangers, a charming and delightful woman, but Alice was always aware of the worm at the heart of the apple.

If I brought Neil Slater here, Alice thought, and introduced him and told her about his offer of a job, she’d be lovely to him and he’d be utterly charmed. That snowy hair in its elegant French pleat, those sparkling dark eyes and that still-attractive
jolie-laide
face, he’d fall like a ton of bricks, people always do. And then she’d put the boot in, oh so delicately, oh so reasonably, and stop me taking the job and I’d end up looking a callous, unfeeling bitch for wanting to neglect such a sweet old lady, confined to a wheelchair too. Shocking. As a child Alice had assumed all mothers were like Christiane; when she found she was mistaken she was wistful but resigned. Her mother was as she was and there was nothing to be done about it.

The taxi arrived with all the commotion and hustle and bustle of manoeuvring Christiane and her wheelchair. The driver, the same one as on the initial trip to Firstone Grange, obviously remembered the dear old lady and her anxious spinstery daughter. Alice caught his sidelong glance and winced at the pity in his eyes.

As they disembarked at Firstone Grange Alice broke out in a cold sweat born of a terror that something would intervene. Maybe the matron will say they’re full up after all, she trembled, or Mother will turn round with a peal of laughter and say it was all a joke and she was going home now. Nails digging painfully into the balls of her thumbs she prayed, a fervent, incoherent gabble of supplication. Please, oh please, oh God: don’t do that to me, let me have a respite, please, oh please,
please
.

No, it was all right, they had negotiated the entrance hall and the matron seemed delighted to welcome them. Up in the lift, out on to the landing, along the carpeted corridor towards
Christiane’s room, no problems. A door opened and an old woman came out, spotted them and halted, holding back to let them pass, though there was ample room for all on the broad, Edwardian landing. Alice suspected the woman of being just plain inquisitive, wanting to suss out the new arrival, and why not? Time must hang heavily on the residents’ hands if they weren’t great readers or knitters or embroiderers.

‘Good morning,’ Christiane made a point of slowing down and smiling a bright, cheerful greeting.

To Alice’s astonishment the other woman recoiled, staring, her mouth open in shock. She said nothing but cowered back in the doorway of her room, reaching out a shaking hand to lean on the door jamb for support.

As Alice followed her mother she caught a faint thread of a whisper. ‘No, not her, not that one, not after all these years!’ It meant nothing to her, caught up as she was in her own dread that even now, her mother might call a halt to the experiment, but no. Christiane Marchant’s face radiated complacency and satisfaction, a cat-with-the-cream smirk, an air of delighted malice. Alice trembled even more, she had seen that expression once or twice in her life and it boded no good. What the hell was she so pleased about now? What mischief was she brewing?

Installed in her comfortable bedroom Christiane turned to her daughter with an airy wave of dismissal. ‘Off you go, Alice, I’m sure you have things to do before you go to work. I’ll be quite comfortable here.’

She held up her cheek for a farewell kiss and Alice bent down reluctantly. Was it her mother’s doing, she wondered, that she had such a fear of intimacy, had never been able to bear being touched at school, couldn’t stand games where you had to get too close to other people? It had been a relief when her father had decided his asthmatic daughter should be educated at home, although her asthma had gradually become less severe so
that she could probably have gone back to school for the last year or two. Luckily the subject had never been broached. An attempt, years later, to join a keep-fit class had ended when the instructor insisted they do lots of partnered activities involving contact with hands, feet, legs and other parts of the body. For once in her life Alice had welcomed her mother’s ‘heart attack’ that gave her an excuse to abandon the class without losing face.

Now she braced herself not to shudder as she gave the obligatory kiss and managed to get herself out of the room, out of the building, out of the neatly lawned and gravelled garden, though it wasn’t till she was nearly home that she began to relax. She was free. It’s going to take the whole of my pitiful ‘escape fund’ she reflected, to keep Christiane at Firstone Grange for an entire month, but, oh goodness, it’s going to be worth it.
Free
! She savoured the word, rolling it round her tongue. Freedom!

Christiane Marchant was pleased with herself too, absently answering the care assistant, Gemma, who was nattering away nineteen to the dozen as she unpacked, not noticing the look of intense, inward concentration on the new guest’s face.

This is going to be fun, Christiane exulted. She was aware, only too well, just how close to breakdown she had driven Alice and this month at Firstone Grange had offered her the perfect opportunity to back off without losing face; that, and the knowledge that the fees would clean out Alice’s escape fund completely. Serve her right too, Christiane frowned, tucking away money like that.

‘Do you want to rest, Mrs Marchant?’ asked Gemma, pushing the last drawer shut. ‘Or you could come down to the drawing-room for coffee if you like, to meet some of the other guests?’

‘That would be lovely, dear,’ agreed Christiane. ‘If you could
just help me a bit with my chair? I’m sorry to be such a dreadful old nuisance.’

The practised pathos she put into this remark had something of its usual effect though not all. Her eyes narrowed as she looked closely at Gemma. I don’t think the girl is all there, she decided.

In fact Christiane did the girl an injustice. Gemma was properly concerned about any nice old lady who had to get about in a wheelchair and she had never had any qualms in her previous job at the nursing home about the bedridden ladies either; sponging bedsores, changing soiled sheets without complaint, it was no trouble. We all come to it, she thought with a philosophical shrug.

No, it was something else that was on her mind, something nagging at her that might upset this lovely job away from Mum, with these lovely old people, especially that nice Miss Quigley who really talked to Gemma as if Gemma was a proper person. That was what impressed Gemma. Mum shouted at her and treated her like a dummy, Ryan said he loved her but she knew that all he really wanted was sex and he was horrible sometimes, like he’d been last night on the phone.

She wrenched her mind back to the present and, as she negotiated Mrs Marchant and her wheelchair into the lift and out again into the hall, she thought about Miss Quigley who had taken to having long, comfortable chats with Gemma, chats about all kinds of things but mostly about what Gemma wanted to do with her life. That was something nobody else had even considered worth discussing and it was a pleasant new experience that raised questions and avenues Gemma had never thought of exploring.

‘Just push me up by a table, dear,’ suggested Christiane, glancing round the drawing-room with a bright social smile. ‘Over there will do, by that lady in the pink cardigan.’

Ellen Ransom felt numb as her past rose up and smacked her in the face. Encased in ice she heard Gemma give a general introduction: Matron Winslow was very hot on that kind of good manners and Ellen watched as Christiane Marchant smiled and nodded all round. Then came the moment she had dreaded in her dreams, but this was a waking nightmare. The woman was real enough, and so was the memory. And the threat.

‘Good morning.’ It was the same voice, the same accent she remembered so clearly even after more than sixty years. ‘Pleasant weather for the time of year, isn’t it?’

‘What?’ Ellen jerked her head up meeting a bland smile. Was the woman going to pretend she hadn’t recognized her? Was it possible, by some blessed miracle, that she
hadn’t
recognized her? ‘Um, yes, yes, very nice and sunny today.’

As Ellen Ransom sank back in her chair, fiddling with her cardigan sleeve and looking dumbfounded, Christiane nodded pleasantly and turned to her other neighbour.

‘It seems very comfortable here. Have you been here long?’

The man hunched in the wing chair came out of his reverie and stared at her blankly, then, as he came to himself he shrugged.

‘A veek, maybe two? I don’t know, it’s all right. It could be vorse.’

He looked away, obviously wanting to discourage any further intrusion but she persisted.

‘I see you’re another foreigner, just like me,’ she chirped merrily, her eyes snapping with dark amusement. ‘Where do you come from? I’m from France, myself, but of course I’ve been over here for a good many years. How about you?’

He shifted impatiently in the big tapestry-covered chair,
trying to ignore her but the high-pitched, sharp voice with its very slight trace of an accent, bored into his consciousness.

‘Well? Cat got your tongue, has it? Where do you come from?’

He stood up and glared at her.

‘I am from Eastern Europe and I do not vish to discuss my past vith you.’ His voice, strongly accented, grated and he shot her a savage glance as he turned on his heel and limped out of the room.

‘Oh dear.’ Matron Winslow had just looked in to check on the new arrival. ‘I do hope poor Mr Buchan isn’t too upset.’ She frowned slightly as she spoke but Christiane was oozing sympathy and regret, so Miss Winslow went on: ‘We ought to have explained to you, Mrs Marchant. He won’t talk about his wartime experiences but it must have been pretty bad. We think he was in a concentration camp, that’s what his son told us, but poor Mr Buchan won’t say a word about it.’

‘Oh how sad,’ Christiane sighed, her syrupy tones belying the sparkle of interest in her eyes. ‘Clumsy old me, putting my foot in it. Mind you, I don’t suppose any of us had a very easy time in the war, or after it either.’

She glanced at Ellen Ransom as she spoke and was gratified to see the other woman shudder very slightly. With a tiny nod, Christiane turned her attention to the other occupant of the wide bay window.

‘Why, it’s Mr Armstrong, isn’t it? The bank manager? Remember me? I used to know your wife. Such a pity she passed away, wasn’t it.’

‘Passed away?’ Tim’s brow furrowed as he looked anxiously at the stranger. He had, up till now, been having one of his good days, engaging in a perfectly lucid conversation with Harriet Quigley for a long time this morning. She had just slipped upstairs to fetch a book from her room, and without her
protection Tim Armstrong looked as though his hold on reality was beginning to slip. ‘Jane is … Jane is going to come and see me soon.… Today, she’s coming to.…’

Christiane’s smile was sweet but with the tail end of a sneer and her victim floundered deeper and deeper. ‘It’s true.’ The words of protest were blurted out as Christiane allowed a trace of scepticism to show. He clearly struggled to contain his emotions and started to shout at her, hands flailing. ‘Jane
is
coming to see me soon; you don’t have to look at me like that. I’m not stupid. Or … or mad.’

As Christiane assumed her misunderstood expression and opened her mouth to deny the charge, a cool voice broke into the conversation.

‘It’s all right, Tim, leave it to me. Why don’t you come and give me your arm round the garden? The sun’s shining for once but I really could use a bit of help.’ Harriet patted Tim’s arm and gave him a nod of approval as he pottered off obediently to fetch his coat, then she turned to the other woman, a stern expression on her pleasant features.

‘Look, I’m sure you didn’t mean to upset Tim, Mrs, er,’ she began. ‘But it’s much kinder not to argue with him. Most of the time he knows perfectly well that his wife is dead but sometimes it gets too hard to bear so he shuts it off. He doesn’t harm anyone by it and he has enough other problems to worry about, so please, do me a favour and let him alone, will you?’

Before Christiane could protest her innocence, Harriet smiled politely and went in pursuit of Tim, obviously hoping to catch him before he started to worry about why he was wearing his coat indoors. Christiane was left staring after Harriet, whose words and tone had both been perfectly friendly and reasonable. So why did she have the impression that she had received a reproving slap on the wrist? And why did she feel even more strongly that she should watch her step with that one?

Kieran was singing as he worked. His redoubtable mum had found him a job as a packer and to everyone’s astonishment he was good at it, his stubby fingers capable of swift, deft movement, and the rhythmical monotony of the work suiting his temperament. He was proud of his work, proud to have a job and he enjoyed working with the older women who were his workmates.